What's Up?

I apologize for the mildly boring title, but please know that it is very much intended to be a shout out to the song “What’s Up? (What’s Goin’ On?)” by 4 Non-Blondes. Also, I feel it’s fitting, as this blog will be an attempt to simply summarize a little bit about what’s been going on here in our everyday lives in Hanga.
Speaking of titles, I think I mentioned long ago that I now seem to narrate my own life with blogs in my head and blog titles for experiences. While sometimes the titles are difficult to decide on (yes, I do put too much thought into this stuff, and yes, I do enjoy it thoroughly), there is one title I’ve had in mind since the first month. That is blog title is for our 7 month Tanziversary. So, because sometimes I feel like making this blog more like a magazine (remember the “Great American Influence” segment?), I’ve decided to create a little contest for any of you fine people who happen to be reading this. The winner will receive a prize I received from my marathon experience… The question?... What will this 7 month Tanziversay blog title be? (Note: If no one tries/guesses correctly before the blog, the question will be “What is the title a reference to?”) The first person with a correct answer relayed to me through any medium (e-mail, comment, Facebook, Skype, messenger dove, telegram, etc) will get to pick between 2 lovely prizes. *Offer good only at participating computers. Not redeemable for cash. Contest is open to all U.S. states except Alaska, and all countries other than Guam. There is no reason for that, I just felt like a contest should always be accompanied by gratuitous and mostly arbitrary fine print. I cannot be held responsible for any eye damage caused by the reading of this fine print.
Speaking of the MARATHON…we’re not done yet! We’re still hoping to keep pushing that total up so that we can get the sisters started with somewhere around 300 books if possible. Thus, the fundraiser will be continuing for a while, so any help you can offer in spreading the word is still greatly appreciated! On a non-fundraising note, I’d like to point out that some people say marathons are a great way to get into shape. I say it’s a great way to get a slap in the face telling you that you should get into shape- I’ve run three times since the big day, which is exponentially more than the first month after my last one! Hizzah!
Alright, now for the everyday life updates I promised. First of all, a small victory:
Last Friday was quite possibly my busiest day in Hanga (teaching nonstop from 8:50 until 2 while somehow opening the St. B. library for short stints in between/slightly during some classes, followed by some very important business in Songea. I actually came near managing to have a stressful day here. Anyway, after the Songea business was taken care of, I had to wait in a hotel entrance in Songea during a 10 minute downpour. In this time I spoke with the hotel attendant for the whole 10 minutes…IN KISWAHILI! Certainly the sentence structure was simple and the grammar was likely flawed, but we really talked! It felt so good. We mostly talked about languages (somewhat ironically), and it just felt really good to have a long-ish conversation that ended with me saying I had to go instead of me trying to explain that my Kiswahili knowledge had been exhausted.
That Saturday morning I returned to Hanga on the bus, and a teacher from the seminary rode up on his bike and asked if I was ready to head to the school picnic. Luckily, I talked him into giving me 15 minutes to get myself together, and then we were off. We bicycled to Nakagugu (that church/junior high about 8km into the bush I like to run to), and I realized it was the first time I biked that trail since very early on when Jack, my bike, decided he wanted to lay down and rest for a while (I hit a bump and fell off my bike). This time went much more smoothly, as the other teacher had a bike that doesn’t go up hills well (1 speed) and I had one that doesn’t go down hills well (no brakes). Thus, we took it slow. Anyway, it was great to spend a Saturday leisurely biking to a beautiful day of rest and picnicking. Most of the time at the picnic we just kind of sat around, but I did partake in a little keepaway with the students. Basically, there was a basketball, but no court or hoop. Luckily, the soccer field was made of hard rock ground, so we dribbled on there. I very much enjoyed running around like a goof as little students lunged for the ball not realizing the dribbling behind my back is possible and actually not so difficult. After the games we sat on the ground and ate the lamb that had just been roasted. It was pretty darn good!
As for classes, I’ve been very busy grading, since all of my classes had some sort of review or test while I was gone for the marathon. In physics we are now learning about equilibrium. You know what that means…that’s right, we’re talking about rotational movement and doors! We now know that, even if there are bricks holding a door open, a student can push it closed with just one finger if s/he pushes at the very far edge of the door (away from the hinge). However, if this student tries to use just one finger to push on the door right next to the hinge, the student will not be able to move the door and is very likely to pretend like his/her finger is hurt just like Aliki did when he demonstrated. (Please note, being called Aliki seems to have instilled a somewhat annoying habit of me speaking in the third person).
In the trade school, the first years are learning about “order of operations” (I learned this as either PERMDAS or “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally”, but they learn it as BODMAS). Anyway, we talked about why following an order is important, and they really seemed to wake up when I put on my shoe and tried to put a sock on over it. The effect was basically, “Ha! That’s silly! Clearly the order is important! I get it.” This was, of course, nonverbal, as they only laughed and nodded yes with grins as if to say, “That wasn’t really necessary, but thanks for the entertainment.”
The second year trade school students are learning about profit and loss (very pertinent and also something they requested). Today I attempted to “take them to the market”, as they all received the name of the item they could sell and how much they had to pay to make/buy it. I tried to be simple, clear, and explicit, but they just were not understanding the directions of the activity, and the class period was a bit of a flop, although some students really got into it, and eventually they all participated. I personally had a great day at “the market”, as I went in with a lowly notebook to sell, made money on that, bought some chipsi mayai, and then sold that and made even more money! This worked out perfectly, because the girl I ripped off ended up with loss, so we had a good class example for both profit and loss (don’t worry, she took it well, and it was in the name of mathematics).
Lastly, there’s the seminary. They recently started “league play” during sports, meaning each form will get a chance to do battle with each form on the soccer field (and supposedly the basketball court, dance floor, and other places?). Anyway, Monday was the day to get the Form 4 vs. Form 1 match out of the way. If you asked anyone, including the Form 1’s, they’d just give a concerned raise of the eyes and tell you it was going to be rough. To frame this a bit, Form 4’s are studying topics fairly similar to those of our 10th graders, and are probably an average age of something like our high school upperclassmen (maybe 16-18). The Form 1’s are studying what is roughly equivalent to our 7th graders, and, while they range in age from probably 12 to 40, most of the soccer players were probably in the 12-13 range. In other words, this is somewhat analogous to a 8th grade vs. 11th grade match, which I think may be even more lopsided than a freshmen vs. senior game, because so many of these form 1’s just haven’t done any of their growing yet. Anyway, I digress. The point is, when they took that field, the Form 4’s towered over the Form 1’s. The game started, and something amazing happened. The ball was almost always near the goal the Form 1’s were protecting, but they just kept being able to kick it away. The Form 4’s kept charging, outrunning, and outmuscling, but the Form 1’s kept scrappily finding away to boot that ball out of bounds and make them start again. The goalie was on fire, and there was a particularly pint-sized littler baller that was able to weave his way through the big guys and advance the ball a handful of times (for soccer fans, picture a mini-Nasri). It was an inspired first half, and the score at halftime was still 0-0 (nil-nil for soccer folk), and the whole school (aside from Form 4’s) rushed to the Form 1 huddle to fan them with shirts. In the second half it rained somewhat heavily for a while and students on the sideline why I wasn’t running inside to take cover so that I don’t catch malaria. I attempted to explain that a) there was no way I was going to miss this epic half and b) you can’t “catch” malaria from the rain- malaria comes from mosquitoes and something we call a “cold” can be caused in part by standing in the rain. They looked at me like I was crazy. Perfect. Anyway, the second half progressed much like the first, with our Form 1 goalie making a couple of great saves, a few blown opportunities by the Form 4’s, and an injury (stalling?- they have to go in at 6 no matter what) to the goalie, the whistle was eventually blown and it was official, my little boys pulled off the unthinkable: A DRAW (tie)!!!!!! I fully expected to take part in a jubilant rushing of the field, but I got to witness something a lot more entertaining. The looks on the faces of the Form 1’s was, indeed, jubilant, but there was no field-rush. Instead, everyone joyfully sprinted into the school building! It was just a mob of shocked and excited little guys who wanted to run and be happy, but also knew it was time to go inside, so that’s where they ran. Probably more than that, it had a Derek Fischer-esque effect of “We need to get off this field now before they have a chance to take this away from us!- (If we do penalty kicks, we are in trouble!)” It was simultaneously exciting and hilarious, and this guy was pretty proud of all of them.
As for the seminary math class, we also had some excitement recently. We are wrapping up our unit on all things fractions, and today was a jam-packed day. First of all, it was their first day with their school uniforms- until today they’d been the 66 kids that wore whatever they had while they waited to join the rest of the school in wearing the uniform. They looked pretty spiffy. Also, last class, after a review test, I promised one visitor would join us on Tuesday (today). When class started today (Tuesday), I commented on their uniforms, and then I introduced Catherine, Mike’s wonderful girlfriend who just arrived and will be here for a couple months. (I should note here that it is wonderful to have her positiveness, her American-ness, and her CSB/SJU-ness here!...not to mention the American food and movies she brought!). Anyway, I after introducing her, I explained we would have yet another guest coming later…(insert suspense here). Of course, I had to congratulate them on the great match, and we did a celebratory “Wake Up” cheer, and it was definitely the loudest and most harmonious they’ve been yet! It was pretty cool.
About 40 minutes into class, as we were just beginning to discuss dividing fractions, I received a phone call on my cell phone which had mysteriously been switched to high volume (I never thought I would actually use the “Activate Fake Call” feature on this goofy Tanzanian phone…who knew?). Luckily, it was my “guest” who needed help finding the classroom, so I told my class I’d be back (apparently leaving Catherine to help the class solve the example I had just put on the board). I sprinted to the teachers’ room and they laughed at me as I put on my costume (I’m a little embarrassed to say that this is the first time I’ve used a costume in class here). (The following story will be an example of what some people believe is unnecessary in education. I believe that a little pizzazz in a lesson every once in a while is necessary, especially if it will help the students remember/understand something important.) I ran back to the classroom with no shoes, a t-shirt with the words “numerator” and “denominator” taped to the back, a pillow tied to my head, and sunglasses on the back of my head. I entered the classroom with my back facing the class and explained that Aliki (this time not third person) had to use the bathroom and that I was the promised visitor, Mr. Divisor…Mr. Fraction Divisor. Without turning to face the class, I continued to explain about “multiplying by a reciprocal”, and, when the time was right, I did a simple headstand in front of the class (falling into the blackboard on the first attempt, naturally). Anyway, doing the headstand (I was now facing the class, although upside down) revealed to the class that the front of my shirt, when upside down, read, “Original Denominator” over “Original Numerator”- I was now the reciprocal of my original self. After much more explaining and sweating (apparently pillow-hats are warm), class was ready to end, and we did one more “Wake Up”, with me standing on my head (that part was absolutely just for fun and not educational, I am well aware). Anyway, they did a very good job with our practice problems at the end of class in dividing fractions. Odds are they already knew how, but, hey, at least that means I didn’t leave them more confused than they started if that is the case. The teachers kept laughing and referring to my pillow as my “teaching aid”, but the Rector of the school called it my sleeping aid (unintentionally?...), which I thought was pretty funny.
Well, so much for a short update. Anyway, I am excited for the blessings of Lent to begin, and, as always, I am missing you all.